A DEVOTED daughter tending her father's grave on the anniversary of his birthday was attacked from behind by a stranger.

He put his hands over her eyes, pulled her on to her back and made an indecent suggestion to her, a court heard on Monday.

Jeffrey Taylor, formerly of Chester Road, Little Sutton, then tried to pin her arms to the floor but she put up a brave struggle, Graham Pickavance, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court.

During the violent struggle at Wirral's Landican Cemetery the 44-year-old woman managed to pull off his distinctive watch.

She threw it at him but he ran off without it and the woman took it with her to a nearby police station and raised the alarm.

Despite this, Taylor was not tracked down and almost eight months later he struck again, this time at about 6am as a 24-year-old woman was walking home through a park after watching a boxing match at a pub.

Mr Pickavance said: 'She heard footsteps behind her and Taylor put his arm around her neck and pulled her backwards.

'He lay on top of her simulating an indecent act. She bit his hand and eventually he stopped and got off.'

Again police enquiries drew a blank but in July last year ­ just over a year later ­ Taylor was arrested for indecently assaulting and falsely imprisoning an 18-year-old girl in his car while posing as a taxi driver three months earlier.

During investigations, his wife was quizzed and she agreed he had a coat matching that worn by the attacker in the park and that he had been at a friend's house watching the fight that night.

She said she had asked him if he had been involved and he claimed to have been eliminated from enquiries but asked her to give him a false alibi if asked by police.

She also told police he had told her that the previous year a woman in the cemetery had thought he was a mugger and began screaming and when he ran his watch fell off.

When 34-year-old Taylor was arrested, he claimed his wife was telling a pack of lies.

He pleaded guilty to two indecent assaults. He denied attempting to pervert the course of justice by asking his wife to provide a false alibi and this charge was ordered to lie on file.

He was jailed for three years to run consecutively with a four-year sentence imposed in February after he was convicted of the false imprisonment and indecent assault of the teenager.

Judge Bryn Holloway said: 'You need to be confined for the protection of the public from your inclinations and habits.'